NHS Whistleblowing. Shelagh Fogarty talks to Sharmila Chowdhury, an NHS Whistleblower. Before the interview, Shelagh Fogarty asks … why is it that NHS whistleblowers are not praised and their actions championed? Instead they are treated as troublemakers, denigrated and usually end up losing their livelihoods. We think we know the answer to this question. It is because there has to be a DETERRENT to whistleblowing and this DETERRENT and the treatment visited upon whistleblowers has to be seen to be working on a wide scale and preferably in all the newspapers, as widely as possible… why? Because it sends out the very clear message to othere NHS workers, or any workers… “THIS is what happens to you if you DARE to speak up about abuse or patient harm or financial failures, theft, fraud or any other behaviour that may be criminal or verging upon it.”

]]>https://wirralinittogether.blog/2018/03/19/seacombe-pop-up-birthing-unit-public-meeting/feed/0wirralinittogetherScreenshot_20180319-125605Screenshot_20180319-125625Are the BBC’s apologies selective and weighted towards persons who wield power?https://wirralinittogether.blog/2018/03/17/are-the-bbcs-apologies-selective-and-weighted-towards-persons-who-wield-power/
https://wirralinittogether.blog/2018/03/17/are-the-bbcs-apologies-selective-and-weighted-towards-persons-who-wield-power/#commentsSat, 17 Mar 2018 13:50:54 +0000http://wirralinittogether.blog/?p=25302Continue reading →]]>Back in September 2015, this Tory, who voted to slash free school meals to 1 million UK children recently, received a very quick apology from the BBC, who’d mistakenly suggested he was resting his eyes during an important House of Commons debate.

It was a relatively mild criticism from BBC Newsbeat, and he was never branded “scum” or an “idiot”. He never lodged a complaint to our knowledge. But the apology came almost instantaneously.

However when we were branded “scum” and an “idiot” – by Media Editor Amol Rajan, we complained, but we’re still waiting for resolution over a month later………

Past and present, the ongoing Tory Snatch continues…

1 million schoolchildren in England, Scotland & Wales have had their food snatched away.

But the children of Northern Ireland are unaffected. Why….?

Because the Tories have cynically played politics with our sons’ and daughters’ hunger, and in the process have lined the pockets of their bizarre bedfellows, those ten bigoted, homophobic, religious zealotry-motivated DUP MPs who occupy six counties of a country stolen by the British Empire.

These throwbacks are not just holding the balance of power in this godforsaken country of ours, they’re holding our feet to the fire. And due to this, the country appears to be going to the dogs in more ways than one.

As a result of this nasty arrangement, 1 million schoolchildren will either be going hungry or their parents will be forced to attend foodbanks to ensure their kids do not starve. This will include not just unemployed mums and dads, but working parents the length and breadth of the UK mainland, many of whom will be hardworking NHS nurses who can no longer manage on the paltry, frozen, poverty wages they are now being forced to toil and bend over backwards for.

We at WirralInItTogether cannot believe that anybody – no matter how dumb and selfish their politics – would have voted for this when they attended polling stations in the last General Election of June 2017.

And that includes the most dyed-in-the-wool, bone-headed, selfish, cynical, hang ’em and flog ’em, Daily Mail brandishing Tories that populate and infest the ignorant, deluded, wealthy Home Counties of this Brexit-bound nation. A basket-case which is careering headlong into the gutter.

Even they would NOT have put an X next to ANY of the 312 treacherous names on the following list, if they’d known that the winning party’s ability to govern would be propped up and held to ransom by bigotry, homophobia and religous backwardness, coupled with the customary Tory scapegoating of disabled, poor, elderly, homeless or otherwise vulnerable people who actually need, want and expect us to care, and to help them survive Tory Britain with our tax revenue.

But as each day passes, the net closes, and fewer escape. And now it’s the turn of our own children.

Our ability to protect them and to care and our councils’ capacity to meet their statutory obligations and look out for vulnerable persons in their jurisdiction is being steadily eroded by powerful and exceedingly callous, tax avoiding Tories…

Well, the Financial Times has absolutely no incentive to lie to me and nothing to gain or lose. Whereas abusive Wirral Council has lots to lose. After all, NONE of the local papers ran with this story. No, they adopted radio silence, and it was left to the Financial Times to break the bad news.

Why would that be?

Because the Wirral Globe and the Liverpool Echo are now paid up bedmates of Wirral Council, rammed up their backsides, along with a number of other Merseyside councils who are all bent over, vaseline bottle in hand, trousers down, clutching their ankles and “awaiting input”.

Rather than serve the public with objective journalism, they’ve opted to self-censor, to not report embarrassing or scandalous news, and to go for an easy life. They’ve allowed themselves to become captured by Field, Foulkes (the dead hand on the tiller), Davies, Davies, Jones, Mooney, McLaughlin, et al.

Consequently it’s the public who lose out because we’re now getting lied to via a rabid propaganda conduit that is either forced through our letter boxes or stacked up in our newsagents. And some of us are still stupid enough to fork out good money in exchange for the shite.

Wirral came back with a load of warmed over bollocks, masquerading as a ‘response’.

I naturally lodged an internal review request, as you do, and they came back with some more half-baked bilge.

To summarise, although I’d asked for lots of details about costly Chinese expeditions made by an unknown number of highly-paid senior officers who jetted off to China, starting as far back as 2008, they came back with what amounted to shit.

As for the request for this press release, within which a council admission had been made that the game was up and China had pulled out, it looks like they chose to lie, rather than tell the truth and be embarrassed or risk identifying who’d made the pathetic admission.

But this is the traditional, defensive, cowardly, paranoid mindset of this toxic creature. Put your hand out in a friendly gesture, requesting co-operation and it shits in your palm.

When cornered, the beast circles, snarling, resentful and ready to take the fingers off anyone fool enough to approach it.

Anyway, to hell with it. I sent the following email today and hope the beast takes time to read it carefully, then looks up, takes a long look in the mirror, ponders its miserable countenance, asks itself, “What the fuck have I done with my life? How did it all end up like this?” And then dwells for a while on its own obstructive, dishonest, pisspoor, bullying behaviour.

But I seriously doubt that this mendacious throwback is capable of any constructive introspection. It’s simply too far gone now, and way too diseased and pock-marked with syphilis running sores to function normally or to muster more than a snarling denial, never mind respond with good will to its paymaster.

So here’s the email… we’ll hopefully be back soon with a response from the lying beast.

Below is our full complaint which has just been emailed to ecu@bbc.co.uk:

Complaint No. CAS-4800223-89YKDY

Dear Executive Complaints Unit,

I write further to the above complaint with which I remain dissatisfied. In accordance with your requirements, I include the details of the BBC’s most recent response and the points included in my complaint at Stage 1b of the process in less than 1,000 words.

Your most recent response came from the “BBC Complaints Team” and was signed by Ciaran Hannah. It was received via email frombbc_complaints_website@bbc.co.ukon 23rd February 2018.

My complaint is attached within a Word document and forms 790 words,

I look forward to your response,

Many thanks,

Paul Cardin

Complaint Summary: There was a breach of BBC standards

Full Complaint:

Subsequent to my initial complaint (below), I am not happy with the BBC’s response to Stage 1b of the Complaints Process. I have checked the BBC Social Media Guidance, the Editorial Guidance and Editorial Standards and believe that the comment made quite deliberately by Amol Rajan in which he referred to third parties as “idiots” and “scum” was abusive and offensive both to me and to members of the public. I was personally offended because I had been copied into the tweet (now deleted). However, there will be an even higher bar raised on standards of behaviour for a senior media editor such as Mr Rajan. His actions were therefore highly inappropriate and breached several areas of the BBC’s code of conduct. I also believe it was wrong and misguided for your employee Yvonne Wall, in dealing with the initial complaint, to characterise the offending statement as part of a “light-hearted exchange” when it was patently not. I also believe that the explanatory statement, “no offence was intended”, reiterated by Ciaran Hannah, is insufficient, and does not mitigate to any degree the offence that was caused.

If I do not receive a satisfactory response from the BBC Executive Complaints Unit, I will be taking this complaint to OFCOM. I am aware at this point that this matter involves unfairness to me, and as such, I am at liberty to defer to OFCOM immediately. However, I will pause, exhaust your internal processes and allow the Executive Complaint Unit to reconsider. There is still a possibility that you may reach the right decision, in accordance with your own stated policies.

My initial complaint centred around a tweet sent by @amolrajan to @MichaelWhite which copied me in (personal twitter ID redacted accordingly):

The subject matter of the tweet is the blocking on Twitter of “scum” and the ‘liberation’ gained by this activity. I am now blocked by BBC Media Editor Amol Rajan, however the matter of being blocked does not form part of my complaint. My complaint refers to how this recently promoted senior BBC public servant thought it appropriate to use language on a public forum which was offensive not just to me, but which would also be likely to offend any licence fee paying member of the public reading the tweet.

There was a further reference to “idiots” posted by Amol Rajan:

Background. Please follow the links contained to gain access to the relevant information.

In the past I have sent Mr Rajan an official, factual Merseyside Police statementwhich confirms that Angela Eagle’s constituency office window was never reported as being attacked on 12th July 2016 in the #Brickgate incident. I have suggested to Mr Rajan that the BBC needs to retract its own “fake news” which is still ‘out there’ and which spuriously suggests that Angela Eagle’s constituency office window WAS smashed by a brick. This appears to be a very clear lapse in editorial standards at the BBC. My daughter attends a Media College and it is possible that Mr Rajan or one of his colleagues may be visiting either in person or online to advise her on “fake news” this year. In light of the above failure and breach of standards, I suggest that Mr Rajan is not a fit person to do so until he has received some training (see below). I also request a personal apology.

MY OUTCOME

I politely request an apology in writing or in a phone call from Mr Rajan.

I politely request that before being permitted to make any school or sixth form visit or connect with schools and sixth forms online, Mr Rajan undertakes urgent training centred around acceptable language – both written and spoken – to be used when dealing with children, members of the public and licence fee payers, and which meets the requirements of the BBC’s standards and codes of conduct.

I politely request that the BBC inspects its public archives and corrects ALL spurious, non-factual items referring to #Brickgate i.e. the ‘brick’ that smashed a shared stairwell window on 11th / 12th July 2016 in line with the Merseyside Police statement linked to above. This official statement to the Information Commissioner’s Office finally clarified that Angela Eagle’s constituency office window was in truth never attacked or broken. Amol Rajan has repeatedly refused to engage with me when I have asked him to put the BBC’s house in order with regards to this item of fake news.

Thank you.

BBC response, received on 9th March 2018:

]]>https://wirralinittogether.blog/2018/03/09/amol-rajan-idiots-and-scum-and-our-full-complaint-to-the-bbcs-executive-complaints-unit/feed/1wirralinittogetheramol rajan bbcExample of BBC fake newsResponse from BBC Executive Complaints UnitIntimidation and the Hypocrisies of Public Lifehttps://wirralinittogether.blog/2018/03/01/intimidation-and-the-hypocrisies-of-public-life/
https://wirralinittogether.blog/2018/03/01/intimidation-and-the-hypocrisies-of-public-life/#commentsThu, 01 Mar 2018 07:54:40 +0000http://wirralinittogether.blog/2018/03/01/intimidation-and-the-hypocrisies-of-public-life/Wirralleaks: We’ve been forwarded the latest footage from the eye of the lens of our beloved Mr Brace by a number of people who thought it might be of interest. Although Our Man Brace makes a guest…]]>

Rewards for intimidation.

Lavished upon a group of people threatening Frank Field and his election agent and alleged racist Councillor George Davies, Deputy Leader of Wirral Council.

We’ve been forwarded the latest footage from the eye of the lens of our beloved Mr Brace by a number of people who thought it might be of interest.

Although Our Man Brace makes a guest appearance three minutes into Part 1 which was diverting especially when we clocked the facial expressions of Standards and Constitutional Oversight Committee chair Cllr Moira ‘Matron’ McLaughlin who gives a whole new meaning to the expression clockwatching. However there were too many longueurs for our liking (that’s French for ‘boring bits’).

As usual it was a case of councillors skirting round the most pertinent issues with Matron reminding committee members that they “can get yourselves into a bit of amess “ if they don’t follow the Council’s guidance and protocols. You don’t say ! – care to give some examples? There then followed a prolonged session of speaking in tongues about…

]]>https://wirralinittogether.blog/2018/03/01/intimidation-and-the-hypocrisies-of-public-life/feed/1wirralinittogetherBirth Rights and Wrongshttps://wirralinittogether.blog/2018/02/27/birth-rights-and-wrongs/
https://wirralinittogether.blog/2018/02/27/birth-rights-and-wrongs/#respondTue, 27 Feb 2018 22:39:06 +0000http://wirralinittogether.blog/2018/02/27/birth-rights-and-wrongs/Wirralleaks: Is this what they mean by a pop-up birthing pool? News reaches us of an interesting meeting held in Wallasey last week. Apparently there were speakers on the night, but very early on, just after the…]]>

Wirral Leaks on fine form here.
I firmly believe these incompetent elected hard right chancers will be hunted down and flushed out sooner rather than later.
Many contentious issues will be coming to a head soon locally.

Apparently there were speakers on the night, but very early on, just after the initial apologies, etc. someone (it’s been suggested a plant) asked a question about the new “UK-FIRST” birthing unit in Seacombe Children’s Centre. Cllr Bernie ‘The Bruiser’ Mooney’s hand spontaneously shot up (we suspect a few people may have flinched) and said authoritatively : “I’ll answer that!!”

It is alleged that she then went into a rambling, Trump style : “Let’s Make Seacombe Great Again” sermon about what a wonderful idea they were…

o the women of Seacombe keep telling her how desperate they are to have it

o the women of Seacombe are over the moon and so happy they now have ENHANCED CHOICE

]]>https://wirralinittogether.blog/2018/02/27/birth-rights-and-wrongs/feed/0wirralinittogetherPit of Despairhttps://wirralinittogether.blog/2018/02/24/pit-of-despair/
https://wirralinittogether.blog/2018/02/24/pit-of-despair/#respondSat, 24 Feb 2018 11:16:50 +0000http://wirralinittogether.blog/2018/02/24/pit-of-despair/Wirralleaks: After all this week’s talk of Wirral Council’s ambitious plans we thought it be a good time to bring them down from their ivory towers/skyscrapers/ drug-fuelled (?)hallucinations and remind them they need to walk before they…]]>

What’s stopping the Wirral Globe and the Liverpool Echo from hilighting this in their pages?
They must know about it?
And what is Margaret Greenwood doing right now since she was told?
Surely they are ALL sat there poised, waiting to hear from us and keen to act in the public interest …..aren’t they?
Presumably the local press would be very eager to cover a seriously injured child or worse at Woodchurch baths. So why not get in before hand and report such an obvious threat to life and limb?

Cynics would say It would help the Echo’s sales enormously emblazoning a local, avoidable tragedy up in banner headlines, then returning to squeeze the aftermath dry.

After all this week’s talk of Wirral Council’s ambitious plans we thought it be a good time to bring them down from their ivory towers/skyscrapers/ drug-fuelled (?)hallucinations and remind them they need to walk before they can run (up a big bill to be paid for by us).

We say this as we publish this salutary tale about what it’s like to try and report safety concerns about a Council run facility and ask the question as to how, as a society, did we reach the point where someone who wants to raise genuine concerns about the health and safety of children is afraid to do so in case there are repercussions for their family and reprisals for Wirral Council staff? Not for the first time – we despair!

The specific concerns are as follows were originally reported to the local press and local MP ( Margaret Greenwood) :